


i'll cheer as you fly

by gravityinglass



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Gen, background mitch/auston
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 10:41:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12769311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravityinglass/pseuds/gravityinglass
Summary: Matt Martin accidentally gives "how to adult" classes to the baby Leafs.--The younger guys enjoyed the zombie survival class enough they signed up for a wilderness survival weekend once the season was over. Matt noped the fuck out of that one and made sure he was long gone before the registration was even opened.He did help Jake write his wedding vows and Mo write his toast for Jake.Then he helped proofread about a million wedding invitations, because making yourself helpful meant people asked for help, who knew?





	i'll cheer as you fly

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically a hypothetical inspired by a bunch of Matt Martin fake quotes, and then those two times that Matt Martin saved players from other teams from smashing into the glass.
> 
> Then I got stuck on a train for six hours and, like a fugue state emergence, out came accidental dad Matt Martin. Enjoy?
> 
> If you found this by searching yourself or someone you know, I highly recommend turning back. This is a work by a fan, for other fans, and is not meant to cast aspersions on anyone in real life. It’s also entirely not backed up in any kind of truth, insofar as I am aware. Perhaps in a parallel universe. I can’t stop you, obviously, but I also can’t make you unknow the things you will know upon reading this.
> 
> Title from Mark Harris' Find Your Wings, because I couldn't find anything cheesier.

  **march 2017**

“Don’t forget your coat,” Matt called, chucking his sweatshirt at Mitch.

“Thanks, Dad,” one of the Connors teased, grabbing his own sweatshirt, and Matt dropped his head to the table in shame. He wasn’t even sure which Connor it had been, being that the Connor in question had used a sotto voice so far out of their normal vocal range it might as well have been Matt’s toddler-ist nephew speaking.

“I want a refund and a trade,” he grumbled, but accepted the goodbye hugs each of the rookies bestowed on him on the way out the door.

He didn’t know how he’d become a surrogate parent to the rookies except for yeah, he did know, exactly, and in detail, and he couldn’t totally bring himself to hate it.

**october 2016**

It started when Mitch needed help with the washing machine at home. His workout gear was fine, the stuff that the facility staff handled for them, but his at-home shirts ended up splotchy with bleach and shrunk two sizes. Sydney laughed her ass off and left Matt to walk Mitch through each step of at-home laundry. He managed it: slowly, and using small words. He even numbered the individual steps with post-it notes.

Mitch took a couple of tries, but he got it eventually. At least two loads were just a total loss, but Matt figured they could be chew toys for the dog and that’ll be the end of this whole mess.

Then Auston showed up and sheepishly asked for a tutorial as well, and Willy texted him asking about how the hell the dryer in his unit worked. Figured that Swedes line-dry their clothes, apparently, so that's what Willy's been doing for more than a year. Kappy at least had mastered the art of the dryer, but not how to iron, and Connor Brown's mind was blown when he found out he could hire a laundry service, not just a dry cleaner.

Honestly, Matt wasn't sure how any of these kids made it out of juniors in anything resembling clean clothing.

He wrote out a cheat-sheet for how to read laundry tags—his first billet Mom had practically quizzed him on them—with instructions for how to handle a front-loading washer/dryer, and how much soap to use, texted a photo of it to every rookie who’s previously asked, and then dusted his hands of the matter.

He should have fucking known.

—

Mitch living with him was kind of unexpected. Mitch’s family lived in Toronto and Matt was still relatively new to the team, so he wasn’t expecting a rookie, not really. He and Sydney didn’t quite lay down the ground rules at the start because Mitch was just staying over occasionally. When it became apparent he’d gone and moved in, they gave him official free reign of the guest bedroom and a list of house expectations. First on the list: make your bed every morning.

It became quickly apparent that Mitch had never encountered a flat sheet in his life. Fucking Canadians, and their stupidly reasonable duvet covers.

So Matt spent an afternoon teaching Mitch how to fold hospital corners because Sydney was precise about the way beds were supposed to look in their home.

That should be the end of it, but of course then the laundry debacle happens and they learn Mitch can’t do cook anything more complicated than a bowl of cereal, so at that point Matt just figured he’d teach Mitch a few how-to-live things before setting him loose on the world to be a responsible young man. A responsible young man, like one of the Connors. Connor Carrick, for instance.

**\--**

Connor Carrick, twenty-two years old and signed to a two-year contract, with a steady girlfriend, an apartment, and a goddamn dog, didn't know how to tie his tie.

"We wear ties literally every day," Matt said in horror, reaching out to fix Connor's lopsided tie. “How do you not know how to—“

"My girlfriend usually ties it," Connor said.

Matt was sure he could feel his eyelids twitch. "What about on the road?"

"I use a clip-on!"

Matt hauled every single rookie he could get his hands on to the front of the plane and made them prove they could tie their ties, and taught the ones who couldn’t a simple Windsor knot. Then he drilled them until they can do it with their eyes closed, just to be sure.

Uncle Leo was eyeing him as he did so, but honestly, what was next? Nylander not knowing how to tie his shoes? Kasperi buying himself new underwear instead of washing it?

Before their next game, he surreptitiously confirmed that everyone on the team was tying their own skates, and only Freddie had any issues. And that was just because he was refusing to take off his winter gloves until he warmed up, so that wasn’t even anything to worry over.

Well, maybe a little, but goalies were weird to begin with. No use panicking unnecessarily.

\--

As the season heated up, Matt started worrying more about the games than the rookies.

He did sit Kasperi down and taught him how to properly shave, because that little patchy stretch of hair on the underside of Kasperi’s chin was actually, properly going to drive him insane, but that was hardly anything.

The one time he shared a room on the road, it was last minute and with Freddie. During the twelve hours they shared space, Matt totally repacked Freddie’s suitcase and grumbled about wasted space and rumpled pants.

“You are twenty-seven,” Matt said, and knew he looked a little wild-eyed. “How do you-- _why_?”

Freddie snorted. “Hotel laundry exists for a reason.”

Matt refolded all of Freddie’s underwear, and then went to find some of the actual team babies.

He repacked Sosh’s bag too, just because he could, and when they got back to Toronto he gave Connor Carrick’s car a jump because the idiot had left one of the lights on and drained his battery.

**november 2016**

They were in New York, gearing up for a three-game stretch against the Devils, the Rangers, and the Islanders in that order when Mitch managed to somehow rip every single pair of pants he owned, right down to his workout shorts.

Matt stared at Mitch’s accumulated pile of pants in horror. Then he stared at Mitch, who was standing there in his boxers. Then he stared back at the pile of pants.

“How the hell--”

Mitch just whined. “What do I _do_?”

Matt rubbed his forehead and then went to find the sewing kit he kept in his travel bag. It had a handful of iron-on patches, a little pouch of buttons in four colors and two sizes, and most importantly: a needle and six colors of thread.

“Visit your tailor when you get back home,” Matt said, and matched the black thread to Mitch’s black slacks. He did a whip stitch up the torn seam, and knotted the thread, passing the pants back to Mitch. “And I’m signing you up for home ec classes at the rec center when we get home.”

Mitch stared at him, wide-eyed. “You are a _life-saver_.”

\--

Matt gave up entirely on getting Auston to wear dress socks. Some things were lost causes.

\--

Matt thought Mo was reasonably grown-up. He managed to remember to pack a lunch every day, had clean clothes, and always returned phone calls within an hour. He even gave good advice to the younger guys on the team. If the captaincy wasn't being held vacant for Auston, Matt would have been comfortable under Mo's leadership.

The man could go grocery shopping and come home with ingredients for a week’s worth of dinners that he could and would actually eat.

Matt was proud of him, the most competent of the baby Leafs. At least, he was proud until he found Mo fumbling all of his finances.

At the very least Mo wasn't in debt, and Canadian taxes were different from American ones, but Matt was still suitably horrified. They were hockey players, and between earning money in both the US and Canada as players, they all had investments and sponsorships, and it was enough of a mess that three separate accountants in Toronto had politely turned Matt away when he’d come calling.

Mo, the dumbass, was just putting his money in a savings account and trying to do his own taxes.

Matt bought him a referral voucher to a financial advisor and hovered over Mo until he called Matt's accountant to set up a time to actually handle Mo's tax situation. Then, because he was starting to develop a stress ulcer about it, Matt bought referral vouchers to the financial advisor for everyone on the team and handed them out as early Christmas gifts.

“I’m doing this because I love you,” he told Auston seriously, looking him dead in the eyes. “Repeat after me: _I will go talk to the financial advisor_.”

“I already have one,” Auston said dryly. “But I get the feeling Mitch will need at least two appointments.”

Matt winced. Auston was probably not wrong.

Matt made sure to invite himself to Mo’s the weekend after to check up on him. While he was there, he figured he could teach Mo how to use the grill so they could finally have team dinners that didn’t taste charred or completely undercooked.

**december 2016**

Auston asked for a list of date spots in Toronto, and the fact that he wasn’t asking Mitch clued Matt into a hell of a lot of things. Add onto that Mitch first asking what to wear on a date with a dude and then promptly having a romantic crisis all over Matt’s couch, and Matt had a pretty good idea about what was going on with the newest, babiest rookies.

He handed Auston off to Syd, and let her take that phone call into the kitchen. Then he rolled up his sleeves, put on his supportive face, and smacked Mitch on the back of the head.

“You’re getting snot on my couch,” he said, and pushed Mitch’s legs aside to sit on the couch. “Don’t do that, I don’t want to have to clean more than I have to. My in-laws are coming for Christmas.”

Mitch sniffled. “I am having a _crisis_.”

Matt raised an eyebrow. If he thought Mitch was actually having a sexuality crisis, he’d do his best to be supportive and kind. Being that he’d had long conversations with Mitch on how hot Chris Evans was, and the fact that Mitch was more likely just having date nerves meant he could go the blunt and goofy route.

“No, you want to sleep with Auston, and quite frankly I am both entirely approving of and entirely appalled by your taste. It’s Auston, Mitch.”

“Exactly. It’s _Auston_.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Are we talking about the same guy here? Because I’m thinking of the guy who took ahold of Bozie’s kid and about had a meltdown when he realized there was a dirty diaper involved, and _that’s_ the guy you’re scared of going on a date with?”

Mitch whined.

“Or how about the guy whose ass you’ve been solidly kicking in COD? The guy who shattered a pane of glass on his first day of training camp and was so embarrassed about it he tried hiding from Babs in the showers? Who sang Bon Jovi with you on the bench? Chin up, kiddo, you’ll have a good time.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you don’t date him, and all dicks stay put away, and you handle it like grownups.” Matt slapped Mitch on the ass and manhandled him up. “Out you go, let’s see you off. Come on.”

Mitch didn’t come home that night. Matt resolved to never ask any details, ever.

\--

He talked Connor Brown through how to pair a wine to a meal, because...come on, you couldn’t drink box wine _all_ the time.

He got a case of a good red in return, and he got to go wine tasting with Brownie, so that made that expedition worth it. Plus, he was now on good terms with the proprietor of that wine shop, so that made Christmas shopping for the in-laws pretty easy.

Then he talked the Marlies into drinking slightly better beer than the shit they were already drinking. He figured that might not stick quite as well.

The cocktail party at his house was mostly Sydney’s idea, but he ended up teaching half the younger guys and some of the WAGS how to mix a few little cocktails. He pretended not to notice that Mitch and Auston kept making each other drinks, and were definitely holding hands.

\--

Christmas itself tested him. They had a few days off, so people were scattering to see family members. He and Sydney were staying pretty solidly put on account of Christmas travel being a fucking nightmare. Even Mitch planned to go home, so Matt figured he could plan on three days of uninterrupted Martin time, and did he have _plans_.

Mostly he wanted to fuck in the kitchen just the once, because it was his own goddamn house and he was tired of worrying about Mitch wandering in at a bad time. With Mitch gone to see his family for Christmas, he puttered around the house, doing the little honey-do-me tasks Sydney was always on him to finish, and he got candles lit, and managed to make a romantic dinner, appropriately festive-themed and even mostly on his diet plan, and he even got a bow tie on the dog. He was feeling pretty good about his getting-laid chances when Auston called.

Auston was generally pretty competent. Hunwick, who was the vet keeping an eye on him, never had any complaints.

Hunwick was also not the one getting the call from a hysterical Auston Matthews, stuck in the Toronto airport.

Matt hated everything in this moment, but he wasn’t just going to leave Auston hanging, either.

“Matty, slow down,” he said, leaning against the counter. “What’s going on?”

Auston Matthews, on the whole, was relatively unflappable. Matt has only ever seen him truly ruffled when playing against Jack Eichel, but that was more because of competitive friendly rivalry between former USNTDP boys, and Matthews was just plain competitive.

This was frustrated, exhausted blubbering, all things that just sounded flatly bizarre coming from Auston. It took ten minutes and a surreptitious text to Hunwick to even start figuring out what the hell had happened.

“Your flight—your flight to Phoenix was canceled?” He confirmed, and patted at the dog’s head when he nudged up against Matt’s leg.

The response Auston gave him was less words and more a garbled string of syllables interspersed with sobs.

Sydney came into the kitchen and covered her mouth to hide her laughter. Matt wrinkled his nose at her, then—“no, I promise I’m not ignoring you, Sydney just came home—no, Auston. There will be a later flight. Or you can fly a different route. A different airline, even—if the counter agent doesn’t ask your autograph I wonder what she’s doing in Toronto—no, don’t cry again, Auston. It’s a canceled flight. _Auston._ Give the phone to the counter agent, please.”

Matt, god help him, talked to the bemused counter agent, who very definitely knew who both Auston and Matt were, and was finding this whole situation equally amusing and frustrating. So Matt talked to her, and then asked to be passed back to Auston.

By this point, Sydney had changed out of her dress—her beautiful, sexy, backless red dress—and into a hoodie and sweats so she could take the dog out for a walk, taken the damn dog around the block and returned. Matt hated everything.

“You’re rebooked through Vancouver,” Matt told Auston. “You doing any better?”

“I think so.”

“Great. I’m going to go back to my dinner with Syd, you’re going to call Mitch until you’re calmed down, and then you’re going to board your new flight. You’ll be fine, Matty.”

“Thanks, Matty.”

“I hate everything,” Matt announced. “I’m turning my phone off, now.”

“Oh, but what if another one of your twenty adopted sons gets stuck in another airport?” Syd asked, smirking widely.

“I’m glad one of us finds this amusing.”

“Kinda hot, actually,” Syd informed him. “Seeing you be all dadly? Makes me sure I made a good choice when we get around to that kind of thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Not for a few years yet, though.” Syd got a look on her face, one of the ones that meant Matt was about to be blindsided by her. “Now, you promised me a romantic dinner.”

“I did.”

“Want to make it an underwear-only romantic dinner?”

God, but Matt was in love with this woman.

**january 2017**

The day of the centennial classic, Matt got a thank you note in the mail from Ema Matthews, so that was nice. At least _someone_ appreciated what he was doing for the kids on the team.

The Father’s day cards from the team that followed were a bit much, especially considering that it was a Tuesday in _January_.

—

The text from Connor McDavid was where Matt firmly put his foot down.

“I will babysit you,” he told a grinning Mitch flatly. “I will babysit the baby Leafs. I will babysit the fucking Marlies, god help me. I will even talk to the London Knights, just for you. I will not babysit any other player on any other team; I don’t care if you’re best friends. _No_.”

“He’s living with Taylor Hall,” Mitch said. “We’re pretty sure he’s going to get scurvy.”

“Then the Oilers will be easier to defeat!”

“It’s the _Oilers_.”

“I don’t care!” Matt rubbed his forehead, hoping the tension headache would ease. “You’re just going to ask me all his questions for him, aren’t you?”

“Just cut out the middleman,” Mitch said cheerfully. “I promise he’s nice.”

“I better get a fucking amazing birthday present.”

So it seemed that he had more put his foot in it rather than putting his foot down.

\--

He texted healthy recipes to Connor McDavid, and then on second thought, added in his laundry cheat sheet.

Connor McDavid replied with a series of thumbs up and a shirtless selfie, so Matt just forwarded a screenshot to Mitch with the caption _why are your friends so weird_ and got Mitch himself coming down the stairs to laugh at him in person.

\--

Willy got a flat tire on the way home from optional skate one morning. Matt hadn’t hit the ice--it was mostly the younger guys and the new lines that needed the ice time, and so he’d done a thorough core workout instead--and so he was one of the last ones out after talking to Babs.

He came across Willy glaring at his car with enough rage that Matt immediately backtracked from his own car and offered to help.

“Do you not know how to change a tire?” Matt asked, pushing up his sweatshirt sleeves.

Willy shrugged. “Before I moved out, Pappa taught us all how to change a tire and oil, but--it was like three years ago? And I don’t remember all the steps anymore.”

“I can walk you through it,” Matt told him, and so they went through the steps of changing a tire, hauling the spare out from the under-panel in the trunk, jacking up the car and unscrewing the bolts, and finally reattaching everything. When they were done, Willy had a smear of dirt on his cheek and a number of fans had asked for photos.

Cars were apparently the theme of the month since Mo needed help to jumpstart his car, Mitch sheepishly asked to be taught how to parallel park, and Viktor Loov from the Marlies needed help buying a new car, now that it was apparent he was sticking around Toronto.

Those two incidents only raised Matt’s blood pressure a few degrees, but they managed to do it without dying dramatically.

He did swear to never let Mitch drive any car they were in together, at least. That worked out fine, since Mitch always left the house twenty minutes earlier than Matt to pick up Auston, who was also a terrifying driver, but in a worse way than Mitch.

Matt had taught Auston how to drive stick, because America was the land of automatic cars and Auston had never bothered driving in Switzerland, apparently.

Matt just hoped Mitch and Auston didn’t die in a flaming wreck, because that would _really_ ruin everyone’s numbers. Also, he’d miss them.

**february 2017**

Auston managed to flood his bathroom since his drain was clogged. Matt talked him through managing the crisis--over the phone because he refused to cross to cross Toronto at 3 AM--and then talked Mitch through calling the landlord and scheduling an emergency plumber visit. He pretended that Mitch had just fallen asleep on Auston’s couch after a round of video games, but he also wasn’t quite dumb enough to believe that.

“Why did you call me?” Matt asked, when Auston had finally found enough towels and Mitch had retreated back to sleep until the plumber got there. “Isn’t your dad still living with you?”

“He went back for a month to help Lexi move into her first apartment on her own,” Auston admitted. “And, uh, I didn’t want to look like I wasn’t handling living on my own, either.”

“So you called me.”

“You didn’t contribute half my genetic material, and you can chirp me in the locker room but not at Christmas for the next fifty years,” Auston pointed out, and then was wracked with a yawn. “Shit. Okay. I’m gonna catch some z’s before the plumber gets here.”

“And then you’re gonna make Mitchy actually deal with it?”

“You know it,” Auston said, and hung up.

\--

Matt figured first aid/CPR classes couldn’t hurt, so he convinced Mo and a couple of the other As that taking emergency survival classes would be a good bonding experience. He made sure to pick one that was zombie apocalypse themed, in the hopes that the lesson would stick if no one actually knew they were taking life skills courses.

Boyle caught on immediately, but Matt wasn’t worried about him.

Mitch kept pretending to have heart attacks and need AED attention, but Matt was mostly sure that was an excuse for Auston to pull Mitch’s shirt off and apply the sticky defrib pads, with a little subtle groping added in.

Seriously, Matt did not want to know what those two were getting up to, and solidly paired himself up with Mo so they could harass the Connors.

The younger guys enjoyed the class enough they signed up for a wilderness survival weekend once the season was over.

Matt noped the fuck out of that one and made sure he was long gone before the registration was even opened.

\--

He did help Jake write his wedding vows and Mo write his toast for Jake.

Then he helped proofread about a million wedding invitations, because making yourself helpful meant people asked for help, who knew?

**march 2017**

“Don’t forget your coat,” Matt called, chucking his sweatshirt at Mitch.

“Thanks, Dad,” one of the Connors teased, grabbing his own sweatshirt, and Matt dropped his head to the table in shame. He wasn’t even sure which Connor it had been, being that the Connor in question had used a sotto voice so far out of their normal vocal range it might as well have been Matt’s toddler-ist nephew speaking.

“I want a refund and a trade,” he grumbled, but accepted the goodbye hugs each of the rookies bestowed on him on the way out the door.

Matt had never had anything like this in New York, not on the Islanders. The team there had been pretty well balanced in terms of vets to rookies; there wasn’t a spate of first-years who needed a little help figuring out this adulting thing.

It was nice to have a place on the team, and not just as the guy who punches anyone who gets too close to Mitch Marner. The rookie class, those still in Toronto at the end of that year, that amazing year, take him out to lunch. They’re in the barest of downtimes between games, and he has an assortment of Marlies and baby Leaf around him. They’ve all shown up clean-shaven, in carefully knotted ties, and at least half of them have brought him a bottle of whisky. They other half have shit-eating grins and bear merch reading variations on the #1 DAD theme.

He can’t help but love these stupid teenagers.

The older guys on the team, the sophomores and juniors, the ones who have been around awhile, they’re taking him out tomorrow. He and Syd don’t have kids yet, but looking around the table now he’s imagining having a baby Martin to cart around with this group of idiots, of having one of his kids be playmates with one of the Connors' kids, or maybe one of Mo’s.

Matt leaned back in his chair and let Mitch talk to the waitress for the table. He grinned at the boys around him and thought: yeah, this trade to the Leafs was a pretty sweet deal.


End file.
